Watching the unveiling of the next political era in the United States has been satisfying on many levels. It is especially nice to see large numbers of deplorables standing up for their bad selves, and watching the political class recoil and faint.

When it was a “close” race, which is to say, a hackable one, delivering the expected status quo government, it was interesting to watch and assess. A close race (post-Republican primaries) through a mainstream media lens is one where Hillary is the predicted winner, but things close up a bit as we approach election day, and she is still the winner. After all, she has all that government experience. It’s what plants crave, as the common wisdom of our time holds.

A dark carnival is upon us, and it isn’t the electioneering play of two soulless political parties and their outrageous candidates.

The smartest men in Washington have already decided on a horse, and it’s Trump. A rational person might observe that the neoconservative agenda is not well served by Trump’s outspoken condemnation of their foreign policy, their failed wars, their global interventionism, their kingmaking and regime changing, their insistence on liberal statism at home and reactionary empire abroad. I have seen no militaristic liberal (a kinder and particularly accurate label suggested by a friend) who has ever advocated a real audit of the Pentagon, as Trump has done. Likewise, none have been found guilty of advocating big walls and immigration restrictions in America, as Trump has done.

Scoop’s long dead. At least when he lived, the country had the excuse of a long Cold War, with death and destruction raining down at any moment, courtesy of a Soviet communist monster fully willing and able to bring it. Liberal statist agitation for war was quite appealing to people who were picked on as children and fantasised about how things ought to be if you just had the power of a large government to make it so, and some real life toy soldiers.

Today, the world is different, America is different, its population far more deplorable, and 15 years of liberal militarism has consumed trillions of productive wealth, added an equal amount of unpayable public debt, re-ignited the heroin trade, and broken most of the countries on the neocon hit list. Now the Republican candidate for the first time in a hundred years sounds like he actually likes the idea of an American republic. A republican candidate who expects other countries to pay their own way, and who refuses to have her serve as the world’s policewoman. It’s what the majority of Americans want to hear, and they are hearing it from Trump. He, and they have rejected the neocon agenda and gameplan, and they are also rejecting the bill that is still coming due for the disastrous insanity put into play during the last two administrations.

That is, up until the tragic and terrifying appointment of Woolsey as a security advisor.

Long-time neocon watchers have written extensively on the anti-constitutional nature and murderous results of a neoconservative foreign policy. This information is not effectively suppressed, and millions have access to it. Yet one’s jaw drops as one sees that the Politico article on Woolsey’s appointment was authored by their health care guru.

For now, we may surmise several things.

1) The neoconservative money is now on Trump.

2) The band is getting back together, calls are being made, texts sent, and meetings arranged. Cabinet positions and appointments have been promised and are expected, and rumor has Woolsey as Director of National Intelligence. Curiously, very few of the 2001 team that created such powerful and blatantly false propaganda for war and destruction seem to have died in the intervening 15 years.

3) Fear-mongering for increased defense budgets, projects, departments, surveillance, and adventures is being revived, updated and adapted for the current era to include global warming, and also reaching back to the old comfort zones of fearing Russia and China. And by golly, we simply must get that wily wabbit ISIS once and for all (wink, wink).

It is a time for us, and we are millions, to be aware that the subversive and deadly bureaucratic federal government we enjoy in this country is not going away. This gang of thieves, faced with growing public condemnation, doubles down on gains it can make while paying lip service to the livestock it milks and slaughters.

Speaking of livestock, I have some Icelandic sheep. Most Icelandic sheep are just that, but there is a subset of the breed called leader sheep. They “have no economic value” but they do have an ingrained and finely tuned sense of direction. Leader sheep sense danger to the flock and impending bad weather, and they act on their own assessment of the danger, leading the others.

As the election plays out, regardless of who wins, but particularly if Trump wins, we know precisely what we will be facing on the foreign policy and war department side. Those tired of endless war and black budgets and debt and fear-mongering might hope that some new president will change all that. This week’s news is why that can’t and won’t happen. But we have something this time around that we didn’t have 15 years ago, and that is the recent well-recorded history of vile murderous old men and their bad decisions and unsustainable ideology. We can do nothing about the fact that they are today older and viler, but we can do a lot about their continued effectiveness as murderers.

When the time is right, Trump needs to have what he needs to say “You’re fired” to Woolsey and his Rolodex. Then, Trump will need access to our collective network, and maybe some good recommendations for a new Director of National Intelligence!

Like leader sheep, we may have little direct worth, be hard to handle and prickly in personality – but our instincts and calm independence in the face of threatening weather are invaluable to the flock and shepherd alike.